My family will be in Naples, Florida 12/25 - 12/30. Has anyone been on a swamp tour that they could recommend?

Take them to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. This is east of Naples but close by. It is run by Audubon Society and is very interesting. There are boardwalks through an ancient cypress swamp so in addition to alligators up close and personal, you'll see orchids and bromeliads growing from the trees, perhaps some endangered wood storks (of course you can often see these chowing down in the drainage swales along I-75), lots of birds and other critters of the Everglades.

If you want to see many many alligators, floating around like logs, drive over to Immokalee and visit Ski at Lake Trafford. I'm sure he or someone will take you out on a pontoon through this lake. The lake is heavily polluted (nothing toxic in most peoples mine, just excess nitrogen and other nutrients) so the lake gets less fishing than it used to. Ski and Annie are fixtures in this community. You can get more information about the lake and them by googling Immokalee and Lake Trafford.

I'm an environmentalist of sorts and do not recommend the airboat tours of the Everglades...so noisy, so intrusive, so unnatural. LMF

I'll second LilMsFoodie's entire post!

Just a friendly reminder if you see an alligator, please don't feed it.

Last time we were there we saw one on the golf course!

When we were at Corkscrew a young (3 ft.) alligator swam right under the boardwalk we were standing on. Huge bull alligators were off to the side grunting and roaring. You'd see the plant fronds waving in the air as the alligators swam through the swamp. I'm not usually afraid of wildlife but that gave me the creeps.

"Wow", how right you are. One of the first things a person moving to a golf course community here needs to learn is: never let your little dog out off his leash. Most golf courses have alligators, some have great big ones.

i just wanted to tell my alligator story. this was during an airboat tour in the Everglades two years ago. the three of us and a guide were stopped in a canal out in the middle of what felt like nowhere when the guide opened up a bag of marshmallows and told us to keep our eyes up ahead. suddenly a head and a tail came zigzaggig very slowly towards us and let me just say there was A LOT of space between the head and the tail. the tour guide said "here he comes! all hands and feet stay in the boat and be as still as possible. this boy doesn't like the way we taste, but he can be in this boat in two seconds if he feels like it". with that, an alligator that was much longer than our airboat swam up alongside us. as we froze in place he happily began snapping his jaws and finished off all the marshmallows. the guide explained that these taste like frogs to a gator, as they are "just as chewy and satisfying". okay, i'll take his word for it. the airboat we were on sat so low to the water that, well.....that was a really, really long alligator and and an even longer five minutes!!

Go to Evergalades National Park, rent bikes, they have a long paved trail through the park. Last time we were there we turned around before the observation tower because of a 20'gator sunning just off the path!!

The last time I was at Corkscrew Swamp was about a year ago, and I did not see a single alligator. You will see gators in the wild most often when it's sunny -- they love to sun themselves. Some of the best opportunities to see them involve canoeing on some of the pleasant tanic-tainted rivers that empty the swamps into the bays, a leisurely Florida pasttime because there are no rapids here, just merrily, merrily, merrily down-stream canoeing. The last time I canoed on the Hillsborough River in Tampa I saw no less than 24 alligators (www.canoeescape.com). But I don't recommend canoeing unless you've done it before -- especially in alligator-infested waters!

Busch Gardens in Tampa is a great place. They have an area where you can look at the gators. As does Tampa's Lowry Park zoo. So if all else fails, go to the local zoos -- alligators are indeed quite common everywhere in Florida. Unfortunately, I don't know much about the Naples area zoos.

Just to clarify what Tandoori Girl said. The alligators like to sun themselves IF it is cold out. But not in the heat of summer. Many people are disappointed at not seeing alligators out when they come here in summer. In Decemeber, you should have no problem if the sun is shining.

Too bad you didn't have a camera when you saw that 20' gator in the Everglades, seeing as how the largest gator ever recorded in Florida was slightly over 14' long.....

OOps. I forgot that people have different ideas of "cold". Here in Naples, cold is under 70.

I have seen one in a ditch beside the road in Florida!!
Also saw a bunch when we went on a tour of Kennedy Space Center, just lazing beside the road.

Myakka State Park is another great place to observe alligators. It's just outside Sarasota.

Traveling east on Alligator Alley (I-75?)a little past the country's smallest post office there is a dirt road you can turn onto that follows along a wide creek. (Your tour operator in Everglades City should be able to give you exact directions - that's how we got them). There were hundreds of alligators swimming and sunning themselves, and you can see them from the safety of your car. Some of them were huge. To tell you the truth, there were so many of them that after a few minutes I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach! Have fun.

BuffaloGirl I believe that little post office that you mention is on US 41 (Tamiami Trail).US 41 south of Naples offers good roadside gator viewing on some side roads.

Yes, you two are referring to the Ochopee post office, which looks like an old-fashioned "outhouse". It is not on Alligator Alley, but on US 41 quite a way "east" of Naples. While that is called South 41, it really runs pretty much east from Naples, not south.

Thanks for straightening me out on the directions, Charlie and Patrick. I certainly wouldn't want the poster to get lost in that neck of the woods!!!